Wednesday, March 9, 2011

This chicken and mushrooms recipe video is an experiment in extreme self-control. I wanted to challenge myself to make a chicken and mushrooms recipe using only chicken and mushrooms. By the way, if it was still Fat Tuesday, I would have totally called this recipe, "Almost Naked Breasts," but on Ash Wednesday, that just doesn't seem appropriate.

While chefs are always preaching about keeping things uncomplicated, and letting the natural goodness of the main ingredients shine though, we rarely follow our own advice. There are so many ways to flavor and enhance breasts like these that it's easy to forget simplicity and instead start, "layering the flavors."

As I mention in the video, while this may seem like it was intended as a lesson for novice cooks, it's actually dedicated to the advanced cook who may have forgotten just how wonderful a two-ingredient recipe can be.

Now, before the more anal among you start sending in the, "there are actually five ingredients" comments and emails, I'll tell you right now, I'm not counting salt and black pepper as ingredients, nor am I including the fats. Hey, I have to sear that skin in something.

Anyway, the real point is to get you to try and see how much flavor you can coax out of these two main players by simply using great technique, and the right equipment. Of course, that's easier said than done, and the vast majority of you will be unable to resist the minced garlic and the cayenne shaker. Either way, enjoy!

Speaking of the right equipment, that stainless-steel skillet you'll see in the video is my lovely new All-Clad 12-inch aluminum core frying pan. We're going to be doing some work together, and this recipe was the first real test run. I've used their stuff countless times in pro kitchens, but I've never the pleasure of working with it in my home kitchen until now. It was perfect for this recipe's required techniques.

Would you say this method is also the best way to cook plain Jane sirloin steaks? Watching recipes from Gordon Ramsay, Jamie Oliver and others, they just pan sear and say "leave it for x minutes for medium or medium well and ONLY FLIP IT ONCE!!!"

After several burned-on-the-outside, raw-on-the-inside steaks, I don't believe their method is possible. I've started preheating my oven to 375 and tossing the steaks in for 20-25 minutes after browning the outside.

I like the idea of keeping things simple in the kitchen as an exercise in palette building. I'm always amazed watching episodes of Top Chef where the contestants blind taste ingredients but miss the simplest products.

A few variations for us home-gamers (I totally answered "fond" by the way): it appears you used button mushrooms but, a nice experiment would be varying the mushrooms to understand their flavor. Also, try a chicken thigh instead of the breast. When the dish has a limited number of components these changes are more noticeable.

Another option is grilled pizza, in which the crust is baked directly on a barbecue grill. Most Italians weren’t familiar with the many regional variations their fragmented homeland had produced, but a longing for pan-Italian unity inspired a widespread embrace of a simplified pizza as their "national" dish.

I only had boneless, skinless breasts and I can tell you that this also turns out great without the skin. You just need to use a slightly lower temperature and cook the breasts to a light, golden color to prevent that stringy crust from forming.

If you wanted to add a bit of minced garlic with the mushrooms and finish with a splash of marsala and chicken stock, this would probably make for a nice, light version of chicken marsala.

Out of curiosity, how many times do people usually burn their hands before they remember not to shake the pan around while making the sauce after taking the pan straight from the oven?

This looks delicious.I just got a cast iron skillet, exactly to have a pan that I can use on the stovetop as well as in the oven. It's not enameled, though. Since I'm not experienced with using it, do you foresee any problems with using a seasoned cast iron pan in place of the stainless steel one?

I made this tonight. It came out tasting great although I had chopped up my own whole chicken and the skin didn't quite survive although I used the breasts and thighs. What skin did survive didn't get quite as brown as what you show. I'll try again later with some store bought breasts.

Chef John, we've made many of your recipes, all are amazing... but this is probably one of my new favorite recipes offering such incredible flavor, and it's so easy to make. Thank you for sharing your techniques with us!

This was the first recipe I tried when I found this site. Dropped a mint on a stainless skillet and discovered...fond. I'm looking into getting a personalized license plate the says "Pan Sauce" now. Thanks Chef!

I am thinking about making some side spaghetti for the dish, any suggestion? white sauce or Red sauce is better to match this "Just chicken and mushroom" dish? I will make tonight. By the way,I love your site, I watch EVERYDAY and try one recipe a day, so much fun and i am spreading the words to many of my love-to-cook friends!!! thanks John.

Fixed this for dinner tonight. My husband said "not mushrooms again" (he doesn't care too much for them and we'd just had them 2 nights ago). After serving it to him, he said it was the best chicken he's ever eaten (he kept making these ummmmm sounds while eating!). It was so moist and tender. Will definitely add to my favorites. Thanks, Chef John (love your videos)

In answer to the question "I only have Calphalon's non-stick saute pans and skillets. However, I do believe they can go in the oven. Would that type of pan still work with this recipe?"Yes, I cooked it tonight in my Calphalon Commercial Saute pan and it came out great!!! My husband gave it 5 stars (and he doesn't like mushrooms!!).

Hi Chef John!I love watching you (you sly dog, you) You really make me laugh as well as prompt me to make things I've all but forgotten that I have made. I've just recently found my iron skillets which had been consigned to the garage when I bought my stainless steel set a couple years ago. There was some rust so I Googled 'cleaning cast iron' and lo and behold...I have brought them back from 'rust buckets' to wonderful pans again. Now if I could just figure out how to make them lighter...Yvonne

I made this over the weekend, and so yummy and simple. I saw that you used champion mushrooms, so I followed suit with my first attempt. Both my wife and I thought that the mushrooms almost tasted like portabellas when done. I'm thinking of trying this with shitakes next. I live in Kennett Square, PA: Mushroom Capital of the World (just Google it...) so I have plenty of really fresh mushrooms to play with.

My only comment on the recipe is it seems that the written amount of oil (2 Tbsp) seemed to be excessive. I had quite a layer of oil in the pan when finishing the sauce that I didn't see in your video. Should that be 2 tsp, or 1 Tbsp?

All I could find was boneless skinless chicken so I bought 2 chicken breasts with the bone and de-boned them myself. The first one went ok, the 2nd one, well...could you do a video on de-boning a RAW chicken breast? I know you've done cutting up a whole chicken. Thank you.

The first time I made this, I didn't need to add water. I don't know if it was a different type of mushroom, or because I threw in an extra breast, but there was plenty of water in the pan when I pulled it out. So, down one ingredient and it was still incredibly flavorful. I threw it over plain rice (to avoid muddying the flavor any more than I had to), and my whole family loved it!

Tonight, I'm making it again with some stock, onion, and garlic. Such is the fate of an easily customizable recipe. But, again, the original was fantastic.

Hi, Chef John. I stumbled upon your blog while searching for the simplest recipe for chicken. I just put the chicken and mushroom in the oven as I write this. I hope I get it right. I'll browse through your website later. I'm looking forward to more simple recipes (which are perfect for amateurs like me). =)

I've made this before and it was amazing, I just did a search for the video 'cuz I have some shrooms in the fridge and a couple of skin-on chicken breasts, so this is dinner tonight! After trying this one I'll be checking the blog frequently. Thanks!

Chef John, your entertaining videos convinced me to try to learn to cook. This was my first real recipe attempt and it was tasty, but I think I overcooked it, especially the mushrooms, even with cutting short the second saute step. I used an iron frying pan instead of stainless steel, would that make a difference? More likely, it was my oven or stove being too hot. The stove doesn't have 'medium' or 'high' designations, do you have any tips to judge temperatures?

Hello Chef John, I just came along your recipes and I absolutely fell in love with them! I just had one quick question for this one ( making it for family dinner next weekend) and mjust wanted to know if instead of water, can I use chicken broth ?

Hi Chef JohnI tried this recipe today & omg it was tasty I love the natural favor of the chicken & mushroom without any sauce! I didn't have the chicken with the skin on so I just use boneless chicken breast without the skin, I butter it up before I fried it so kinda get a really close Golden look like yours lolThank you so much for all your amazing video recipe

Hi Chef John,I was hoping you could tell me where to purchase boneless skin-on breasts. A few calls to my local grocery chains have only turned up bone in. Do I buy those and debone them? Thanks for helping me become my family's cook!